


Behind the Eyes

by miss_grey



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Introspection, M/M, Thoughts about war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 08:25:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11353632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_grey/pseuds/miss_grey
Summary: Sledge wonders whether it's better to feel like a monster or to feel nothing at all.





	Behind the Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fic for this fandom. I just recently found it and I'm very excited to contribute! I hope everyone enjoys.
> 
> Disclaimer: This fic is based off of characters in HBO's The Pacific. No disrespect to any of the real soldiers.

 

They tell you about the blood and the bullets and the dying.  They tell you you’re going to have to kill.  They tell you that it’s your duty, it’s an honor, you’re gonna save a lot of people, hell maybe even the world.  They tell you all of that before you join up.  But you don’t understand any of it until later.

What they could never tell you, even if they tried, was what it was like to wonder whether it was better to feel like the monster you knew you were becoming, with its ragged claws ripping through your chest with each shuddering breath and footfall and rat-a-tat-tat, your finger on the trigger…or whether it was better to feel nothing at all.

Sledge wondered.  He thought about it all the time, whenever he wasn’t running, yelling, fighting to survive.  He thought about it in the early hours of the morning, before the sun came up and the darkness was lit only by gunfire and enemy flares.  He thought about it during the marches, one foot in front of the other, boots sinking ankle deep into the mud and blood and stinking fucking entrails.  He thought about it curled into his foxhole, when his eyes were so heavy with exhaustion, too heavy even to sleep. 

During combat, thought, he didn’t think about it.  During combat, he thanked his lucky stars that he’d been blessed with a monster inside of him.  He’d learned by now that it was the thing keeping him alive.

Later, though, later he’d wonder.  He’d look into the eyes of his comrades, but never too long.  No, not too long.  No one was comfortable enough for that level of revelation, of vulnerability.  He’d gotten used to the blank stares of other marines.  Flat eyes and far-away looks.  He wondered if there was any saving those boys.  If they were like the soldiers his father had warned him about, the kind of soldier Dr. Sledge feared that Eugene would become.  But then there were the other kind.  The monsters.

Sledge hadn’t gotten any soft introduction to war in the Pacific.  He’d been shoved out onto a beach where he’d had to crawl across burning hot sand or get blown to hell by enemy artillery fire.  He’d seen it happen to a lot of other men.  Good men, probably, just like him. 

He’d seen men sobbing and screaming hysterically over their wounds, shouting for their buddies, yelling for the enemy to just _die, fucking die!_  The desecration of the corpses was probably the worst.  Ka-bars and fingers shoved into their mouths to steal their bloodied teeth, ripping off their insignia and taking their weapons.  Souvenirs.  That’s what the guys said.  Trophies. 

Sledge couldn’t imagine ever feeling proud enough of himself for killing a man to take a trophy.  Never imagined he’d feel sick enough to steal his teeth.

The worst monster of them all, Sledge thought at the beginning, was Snafu himself.  He was more than a monster.  He was like a devil, reveling in the blood and the sweat and the fear.  It was like he _belonged_ there.  And Sledge couldn’t ever imagine him being anywhere else.  Snafu embraced the monster inside of himself and let him out.  Even when he wasn’t killing, the demon hid in his wide, bright eyes, and the curl of his sardonic grin. 

But that was at the beginning.  Back when things were simple.  When Eugene was just starting to wonder.  Now, even fearing Snafu wasn’t so simple.  Wasn’t simple that a monster like that could want to save him.  That a monster like that would stalk his shadow and guard him against the worst of the things, over and over and over again.  He’d seen Snafu do terrible things to people, living and dead, but it wasn’t much worse than Eugene thought about doing.  It wasn’t much worse than the pain that clawed at his ribcage with every single breath.

Eugene looked into so many eyes—the dull, unfeeling, unseeing ones, and the monstrous bright ones, and he wondered.  He never could decide which was worse, though, and he was too afraid to take a look into his own eyes to find out where he stood.  Whatever the answer was, though, he knew: Snafu wasn’t the worst monster on this island anymore.  After all, he was still trying to save Eugene from himself, wasn’t he?

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
